Olympics: Suhr stuns Russian star to take gold in pole vault

By The Associated Press

August 07, 2012 - 2:00 AM

LONDON — For the first time before a big meet, Jenn Suhr heard a positive message from her husband, Rick, who's also her coach.

While sending Jenn onto the field for the Olympic pole vault final Monday night, Rick told her nobody's unbeatable — not even Russian superstar Yelena Isinbayeva, the two-time champion and world-record holder.

And so, Suhr went out and proved him right, defeating Isinbayeva, capturing the gold and giving a nice boost to the United States track and field team, which hasn't been getting many breaks so far at the London Olympics.

"Before I went out here, he said, 'You're going to win this,'" said Suhr, of Fredonia, N.Y. "I've competed 100 times and that's not something he says. It puts that extra spunk that I could do this. Someone else believes in me that much."

Suhr vaulted 15 feet, 7 inches (4.75 meters) to defeat Cuba's Yarisley Silva, who cleared the same height but lost on a tiebreaker because she had one more miss in the competition.

More significantly, Suhr beat Isinbayeva, who failed to become the first woman to win the same individual track and field event at three consecutive Olympics. Isinbayeva settled for bronze with a vault of 15-5 (4.70).

"It's such a big upset, I don't think people realize how big it actually is," Rick Suhr said.

And yet, for the U.S. track team, it only moves the scoreboard up by one notch. Suhr's was a surprise gold for the Americans on a night when they couldn't catch a break anywhere else.

Two-time Olympic gold medalist Angelo Taylor staggered to the finish in the men's 400-meter hurdles for fifth place in a race won by 34-year-old Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic. Sanchez finished in 47.63 to beat American Michael Tinsley to the line, as the United States took only one medal in an event where it captured all three in Beijing.

"It's a new day, it's a new era," said the 33-year-old Taylor. "Things change. People evolve. People show up."

The American was heading back home after pulling up with a hurt hamstring in the first round. With no other American men in that final, 19-year-old Kirani James gave Grenada its first-ever Olympic medal.